It’s incredible to take in one of Leah Johnson’s pieces. Pain, prayer, memory, hope, all these things are gathered layer by layer until the canvas feels less like an object and more like an offering. And it’s an incredible journey she took to get here.
After a 25-year career in politics, Leah had spent much of her life working to inspire change through systems, strategy, advocacy, and accomplishment.
But over time, she began to feel another kind of calling. In 2024, Leah left politics to focus full-time on her work as an artist, teacher, mentor, and author. It was not a departure from purpose, but a return to it. Her work today is rooted in intentional creativity, spiritual exploration, and the belief that beauty can become a pathway back to the self.
Leah’s journey deepened after the publication of her first book, Finding Fantastic Joy, in 2022. The experience opened a new chapter, one that called her more fully into the study and sharing of the Divine Feminine. For more than a decade, she had been learning, creating, and growing alongside dear friends in Teotihuacán, Mexico, where she immersed herself in pre-Columbian Mexican culture, spiritual practices, and teachings connected to Toltec lineage.
Those years of study became a true inspiration. Through teachers, shamans, and a supportive community of friends in Teotihuacán, Leah began to explore creativity not simply as an expression but as a sacred practice. The teachings she encountered helped her connect more deeply with the divine within, embrace her true muse, and begin releasing the patterns that had once defined her life. Years of achievement and external accomplishment had left her feeling empty and disconnected from her soul. Art offered another way forward.
Her work is created through what she describes as a deep spiritual process of releasing and receiving. Each layer and brush stroke becomes part of that exchange. Heavy things are released. Beauty is received. Energy is transformed into matter through color, symbol, movement, and intention. Through intentional prayer dots filled with gratitude and love, her paintings become meditations on hope, peace, courage, and the possibility of becoming whole. Her process reflects the belief that each person has the power to bring their dreams into being, but only if they are willing to release the burdens that keep their true beauty from flourishing.
“Stroke by stroke,” Leah says, “my paintings are my connection to the divine in me and the divine in you.”
Much of her work carries symbols from her time in central Mexico. Ometeotl, the union of duality in life, appears as a reminder of balance and wholeness. The sacred four-petaled flower honors life, rebirth, and the many dimensions of existence. Guadalupe, the Great Mother, is also central to Leah’s visual and spiritual language, representing compassion, mercy, protection, and maternal love.
For Leah, Guadalupe’s message to Juan Diego more than 500 years ago continues to resonate: “Who am I but not your mother… I am the Compassionate Mother of you and your people in this land and of all the others who love me, call to me, search for me, and confide in me. I will listen to their pain, suffering, and crying and heal them from their misery.”
That mercy, Leah says, has helped her move forward and follow her muse. Today, she teaches Intentional Creativity Medicine Painting classes in Loveland and online, while also leading Divine Feminine and creativity retreats to Teotihuacán. Her work invites others into the same kind of exploration that changed her own life: a journey of release, beauty, spiritual connection, and creative courage. Outside the studio, Leah’s first and most cherished role is being a mother to her two children, Frankie and Nolan. Creativity flourishes in their home, where painting is often a shared experience. Alongside her husband, Mike, Leah also finds inspiration through travel, believing there is no greater teacher than fully living. Leah Johnson’s art is an invitation to remember the divine spark within. It asks us to soften, release, reconnect, and become brave enough to let beauty lead. In her hands, painting becomes more than an image. It becomes prayer, transformation, and a path home.
findingfantasticjoy | independencegallery.com/leah-johnson
